AUA HAS ONLY ONE THING ON ITS MIND — THAT’S TO WIN THE TMO MARIST SEVENS

Mon, 04/01/2013 - 4:26pm

The Aua Rugby Team made a clear statement during our coverage — that is — they are clearly joining the American Samoa Rugby Union’s TMO Marist Pago 7’s Tournament to win it all, according to Head Coach Pine Samu.

Last Wednesday, Aua played a friendly scrimmage match up between their sister village of Lauli’i, and Samoa News was able to see that Aua has some dominating speedsters, coming into this year’s 2nd annual tourney.

“As of now we have a lot of new players who are just being introduced to the sport of rugby sevens; the majority of my players are former football players from Fagaitua High School and I still have some who are still in school. The physical performance of these athletes are outstanding, but we’re trying to guide them to a similar direction of football, but with different rules,” said Samu.

He added, “We have approximately twenty players… but the maximum number of players that is being scheduled for this sevens tournament is only twelve. So out of the experienced and inexperienced players we have, we will make the selection according to participation and performance.”

Aua’s team has been on the field for two months, which is a lot of practice days compared to some of the other local teams that have just made it to their second week of practice. Prepping to win was what Samu touted.

“Our goal is to continue to teach these athletes the meaning of rugby, and how the sport is properly played. But God-willing that we are practicing to win, I don’t want to think about the future on who’s next, but we will be looking to whoever that will be in front of us, that’s who we have to beat, in order for us to achieve our main goal, and that is to win and keep moving forward.”

He concluded, “Our team’s support comes from the born and raised Aua community members who reside in the village and are leaders of the “aumaga”, who understand the reason why we come to this practice field everyday. For support, we haven’t begged one single business, because we know that our village and our Aua community have our backs and they too have strong support for their family members, who make up this team.”